


I Am The One

by BattleBelle23



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/F, F/M, M/M, Modern Character in Thedas, Modern Girl in Thedas, Pop Culture References Galore, References to Addiction, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, and a hidden geek, f!inquisitor is a beauty guru, f!inquisitor is from our world and our time, others are...dark, some chapters are just nonsense shenanigans, sucked into a game trope, win to exit trope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:08:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22413004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BattleBelle23/pseuds/BattleBelle23
Summary: Skylar Claire was a vain, narcissistic, high-maintenanced beauty guru on Youtube, frequent Snapchatter and minor Instagram influencer. At least, that's the image she puts out. So, you can imagine her confusion when she wakes up one day, shackles around her wrists, two very tall women and her hand sparkling green.….What in the name of fuckity fuck is going on?
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Female Inquisitor/Dorian (friendship), Female Inquisitor/Everyone (friendship), Female Inquisitor/Vivienne (friendship), er sort of - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Fair warning, this story will touch upon some potentially triggering subjects for depression, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, alcohol addiction and sexual assault. Be warned.
> 
> The story is meant to be half-fun, half-dark. I always liked seeing how people in modern days would react to being in the Dragon Age world and I had a few ideas for scenarios that could make for potentially fun reads. 
> 
> But then I saw the themes of the Inquisitor always feeling the burden and the weight of the world on her shoulders. So many of us can relate to that despite obviously not being the leader of some world-saving organisation. I wondered, what if the Inquisitor was already falling apart before and now she's been sucked into a world where she had to be this perfect, composed, all-knowing leader? 
> 
> It started off as me imagining a potentially heavy scene involving Cole and the Inquisitor and it made me realise I could go further and make it into a big story. This is definitely an...odder twist to the story. Initially, I wanted to make a comedic '21st century girl gets sucked into the game and hilarious shenanigans happen' series of oneshots, and another separate story where the Inquisitor has serious issues. But then I thought, why not combine both? After all, so many of the people I know are the absolute best at keeping up appearances. It's important to realise that someone who can be cracking jokes, looking confident and seemingly problemless can actually have big issues that they're hiding.
> 
> This is the result. Some of the darker things have been inspired by personal experiences, as well as the experiences of people I had known in real life. If you're reading this and you, too, are currently struggling with some dark thoughts these days, I hope in reading this, you'll realise, at the very least, that you're not alone and much like the Inquisitor in this story, you may find that there's some fight in you yet.

_I have run through the fields of pain and sighs_

_I have fought to see the other side_

_I am the one_

_Who can recount what we’ve lost_

_I am the one_

_Who will live on_

-as performed by the bard Maryden Halewell

* * *

“Perception is reality, Skylar. If people perceive you to be crybaby just like your mother, then you are." my father once told me. His eyes filled with anger even though he stared at nothing but the empty roads we drove on that night. He took a long sip of his flask, which I would later learn as a teen to be a mix of vodka and coke. “But the good news is, if you work hard enough, you can choose how people will perceive you. So be smart about it girl.”

I was eight years old at the time. My father had a nasty habit of taking me in his car and driving me around whenever he and my mom fought, which was all the time. I was still in my pyjamas. Half-asleep, but fearful. Were my parents going to get a divorce? Were we going to be a broken family? Would they hate me one day as much as they hate each other? These were, of course, fears I would later go on to grow out of. In fact, had I known then what I do now, I would have realised their divorce would have been a blessing.

Of all of my father’s half-drunken rants to me, this is the one I remember the most. After all, surely there must be some truth to it. Mommy and Daddy hated each other, screamed at each other constantly, hurt each other all the time, yet every adult at parties would gush about how they were the perfect couple. Daddy was jobless, friendless, loveless, yet he was able to make people enjoy talking to him. Mommy was insecure, always tired, never happy, yet she glowed in the presence of others. 

Fast-forward to nearly twenty years later and it seemed like my father’s wise if not unkind words worked wonders.

“Hey, my little Skylites, it’s Skylar Claire here and today, I’m going to be doing a complete morning routine and get ready with me. This is just to show you how my day goes, how I use my time to be more productive even though I’m super tired and how I try and make the most out of everyday. So, yeah, let’s get started!”

Yep. I ended up becoming a Youtube beauty guru. For those who aren’t exactly fans of the beauty community, that means that I’m the one you see on your news feed reviewing make-ups, with over-filtered cameras and probably a scented candle in the background. I wasn’t the biggest beauty guru on Youtube, of course. But I was one of those who had two million views at most, a million at least, so I’d say all in all, I wasn’t doing too bad. 

Video after video, I sold lies. I gave the illusion that I was the type to wake up at 6AM every morning, do yoga and meditate for half-an hour, eat a healthy breakfast consisting of bland oats and fruit, then go to the gym, then write in my cutesy bullet journal as if I had the time or energy to draw cute doodles and write perfectly.

I made myself pretty, but not too pretty. I was sassy but not overly so, just enough to excude a little bit of confidence but not too much that it looks arrogant with the occasional self-depricating humor. I posted toast and iced coffee as if I bleed avocado and pumpkin spice. I spend an hour on make-up, then wear an oversized sweater and a messy ponytail only to say ‘just rolled out of bed’. 

It’s a rather gruelling thing, if I’m being honest, being Skylar Claire. Skylar Claire is relatable, she’s a little quirky, she’s that girl-next-door who’s super popular and effortlessly pretty and is forever baking cookies despite being a size 6. She’s self-depricating, cutesy and a klutz.

She’s also everything I hate in a person: meek, insecure, clumsy, childish, the type who thinks being stupid equals to being cute. The one who will always be seen as a girl needing to be coddled, not a grown woman capable of taking care of herself. The kind who thinks writing 'positive vibes only!' on her notebook is equivalent to mastering self-actualisation.

But she sells. Very well, I may add. Girls like me because I’m pretty in the non-threatening, friendly, Disney-esque kind of way, like I could be their best friend. Boys like me because I look like the kind of girl they could bring home to mom and would come home from work everyday only to be greeted with a clean house and perfect meal, the kind of sweet girlfriend who would only satisfy their macho need to provide for and would never disobey nor surpass them in any way. 

And if I need to be someone else, I am. I can be fun and flirty or sweet and shy or, my personal favorite, a smouldering temptress. I could try being who I really am, except, well, let's just say it has not done me any favors in the past. In fact, all it has done is ruin me. So, suffice to say, 'being true to myself' isn't exactly tempting when I know what 'being myself' leads to.

Yes. I had acting skills that could rival a that of an Oscar nominee: I could cry on command, I could look vulnerable, I could be intimidating, could act dumber than sand one second, smarter than all philosophers known to man the next.

It is a skill that may not have made me happy. In fact, I’d argue it’s done a lot to contribute to my unhappiness. But it is a skill that has helped me survive.

I, more than most people, understand the power of appearances. And in order to survive the next couple of days, I had a feeling it’s a tool that would be sorely needed.

* * *

It was supposed to be an ordinary day. Nothing unusual happened at first.

I woke up and immediately opened Instagram, trying desperately to forget the nightmare I just had from last night. I spend an inordinate amount of time in bed. In truth, I desperately wish I could stay in bed all day. But I can't. Because I am technically unemployed right now and my 'job' is the only thing bringing in the money. So I order pizza because my body is aching and I can barely move or breathe. I then spend the next few hours brainstorming for possible future video ideas, writing down scripts and making little side notes like ‘quirky smile during sentence’ or ‘cutesy giggle here’. Scripts perfectly tailored to bring Skylar Claire to life.

I ended the day editing a ‘high-end products vs drugstore’, pretending that the latter is just as good when I know I’m a huge label whore and would probably keep using the high-end products anyway. I know, come morning, I will have at least 100,000 views, which will earn me on average, 500 or 1,000 pounds, easily, especially since I included a sponsor.Some sad snake oil in a pill that claims to clear your skin and make your hair shiny. Doesn’t work, of course. But it keeps my rent paid. Especially when a week will have past at that initial 100k views turns into 1 million. 

Contrary to the glitzy, healthy guru lifestyle I advertise, I eat a dinner comprised of boxed macaroni and cheese. I then look at my phone, find a picture of a healthy salad I made months ago (that I didn’t end up finishing because it was bland as fuck) and posted it on my Instagram, with the hashtag ‘dinner tonight! sooo getting pizza tomorrow lol’. Instead of the elaborate 8-step Korean skincare routine, I just wash and clean my face and slap on a moisturising cream before heading to bed. I end up going to bed at midnight instead of the promised ‘sleep by 9:30 pm’ routine I constantly tweet.

Then I lie in bed, trying desperately to sleep, but can’t. One AM, two AM, three AM flies by and all that’s been accomplished is me sobbing uncontrollably into my pillow. Cruel thoughts haunt me, parts of my body burns and itches and my throat begs for me to scream, and I contemplate whether I had any more sleeping pills in the cupboard, how many do I have left and is it enough to…

Around four, I give in and head to my kitchen and break out a glass of whiskey, a steady collection of empty bottles piling itself in the corner next to my sink. My plan was to drink until the words in my head stop. Unfortunately, it is a strategy I’ve used many times and you grow a certain tolerance to these things. It takes at least eleven shots to knock me out. After that, who knows.

Well. Eventually, I do sleep. 

And then I wake up, in the mountains. 

Jesus, how much did I drink?

This is a dream. Or a drunken hallucination. Maybe I mixed pills with alcohol. Who knows? 

Dream or hallucination or afterlife, wherever I was, it was beautiful. Snow covered everything like a cotton blanket. Untouched snow is always the best. The cold wind breezes around my cheeks, which I bet has that lovely red hue right now. I can see snowflakes in my eyelashes, and I can’t help but kneel and touch the snow. I scoop a handful and roll in into a ball, then throw it at nowhere in particular. 

Immediately, red alarms blare in my head as I notice how the ice melts a bit against the warmth of my hand. How the sound of it crunching as I roll it is so real. How even the biting cold is starting to make me shiver. Had I ever been cold in dreams? Had I ever been too hot? No, temperature doesn’t exist in dreams. Does it?

_**“Now is the hour of our victory.”** _

I nearly fall on my ass when I heard that. A deep, booming voice that seemed to make the earth itself shake a bit. It’s only when I look down that I realise I can see something in the distance. A church? It didn’t look like a church anymore. More like an old ruin.

But beyond that, I saw a reddish glow. It wasn’t quite fire, wasn’t quite lightning, it certainly wasn’t mist, but looked like a mix of all of them. Most people, when faced with danger or an unknown circumstance, have a fight or flight instinct. Nowadays, when we see something like a scary-looking stranger or a tsunami, it is instinct that guides us to run like hell. 

The mountain, the snow, the ruins, the glow and the voice…they all made me want to run. That would have been the smart thing to do.

_**“Bring forth the sacrifice. Keep her still.”** _

_“Help me! Somebody, help!”_

Next thing I knew, my feet were running on their own and I only had one goal in mind: find whoever was screaming and rescue them.

Something unexpected about the great Skylar Claire is that I have this weird savior complex. I see someone in need of help and I run. It doesn’t matter if it’s a stranger who needs a shoulder to cry on, a person in public being shamed for the color of their skin, or if it’s my father’s hand about to fall on my mother. I see that someone needs help and so I do. I try. Because no one around will. 

So I ignore the instincts in me that tell me, don’t run on a mountain, you could hurt yourself. I silence the voice that says ‘Are you stupid? Whoever is hurting that person will hurt you too’. And I certainly don’t pay attention to the looming fear that builds in my belly when I see what is happening…

Only later on, I can barely remember what happens. These are the last thoughts I can remember, and suddenly everything went black.

* * *

One of my only talents, aside from keeping up appearances and lying, is a rather useless one, but I am weirdly skilled at figuring out when I am dreaming.

I suppose you could contribute it to my overtly logical viewpoint in life. If I see a scary monster or that creepy girl from the Grudge, I know it’s a nightmare and I either do my best to wake myself up (which I am often fairly good at) or I change the dream to make it into something more ridiculous: sometimes, the creepy grudge girl is replaced by that one math teacher I had in high school I never liked and I proceed to beating the crap out of him. This one time, I transformed what was a demon into Idris Elba and, well, no need to continue to explain how I finished that particular dream.

It’s not just the nightmares that get me. It’s the good dreams. Specifically, the dreams I know are too good to be true. For instance, last night, I saw my little sister, Jenny, still alive, her cheeks with a healthy glow, her body no longer terrifyingly gaunt and eyes filled with the mischief and joy I once knew as a child. I knew instantly this wasn’t real.

You see, it’s very easy to figure out what is or isn’t a dream. Just ask yourself, could this really exist in real life? It’s pretty straightforward.

So when I suddenly found myself in the mountains, saw old ruins, heard scary voices and witnessed an odd glow, it was reasonable to assume I was in a dream. After all, how could I not be? This all seemed to defy reason and logic.

And yet when I woke up, I found myself in another odd predicament.

Being inside a dream has a certain…je-ne-sais-quoi to it. It’s like being in a world where everything moves as if you were underwater. All the voices clear yet faint and muddled, distorted, sometimes their words don’t even make sense. Even though you’re experiencing things in the present, they all move as though you were remembering a distant memory.

Being in the mountains felt nothing like that. At all. Still, I am sure it’s a dream.

But I’m surprised that as I wake up, it still doesn’t feel like it. And I’m still not back in my room.

Instead, I am in what I can only call a dungeon. Yes, a dungeon. A medieval-style dungeon, complete with stone floors, torches burning with fire for light and wooden doors. 

Not to mention, the shackles around my wrists.

Seeing the shackles, I can’t help but wonder if I accidentally paid a trip to Richard, my ‘friend’ to whom I occasionally go to when I’m feeling, shall we say, ‘lonely’. That ‘friend’ happens to be very wealthy and very into handcuffs, so I assumed I drunk-dialed him and I am now in some sort of kinky dungeon that I forgot about.

Of course, that didn’t explain why I still had my clothes on. Speaking of, I began to shiver. I just now realised that the last thing I remember is being on a mountain. Now, I’m in a cold dungeon and I swear I can hear winter air furiously whipping outside.

…And I was wearing the last thing I slept in, which were black shorts, an oversized red hoodie that could have been a dress and black thigh-high socks. I suppose I should count myself lucky that I at least seemed to be wearing sneakers. Ratty old Converses.

Poor outfit planning aside, I screamed when suddenly, my hand felt like it was in extreme pain. Physical pain, I was quite used to. From cuts or scraps or bruises. This was something else. 

It felt like my entire hand was on fire, yet I also felt like I was being electrocuted all at once. 

But that’s not the oddest part of it. My hand was glowing green. Strange green marks appeared on my hand and sparks flew from it. No doubt about it, this had to be a dream. But it was the most real-feeling fucking dream I ever had.

Before I could ponder on this any further, the wooden door before me slammed open, revealing two women, both of some had some kind of weird armor on them. It’s only when they come in that I realise there are also guards surrounding me. Guards with swords and also in armor. 

All of them looked like they came out of Comic-Con or some medieval festival. But the closer I looked at their armor, the more I notice just how real it looked. The chainmail looked like actual metal, the leather didn’t seem faux, even the armored boots looked meticulously crafted from some kind of fancy material. Not to mention, those weapons did indeed look very sharp and useable, not just something you could buy online. They all looked like the real deal, ones you could only find today in museums or auctions for the ridiculously wealthy.

The armor that caught my eye the most is that of the short-haired one. The symbol on it, the large eye in white, looked so familiar. Actually, when I looked at both of these women, I couldn’t help but think of how familiar they looked, yet I couldn’t put my finger on it. To be honest, I was too busy trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.”

…Excuse me, what now?

“The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.” 

At this point, I’m trying to figure out all the possibilities.

Possibility A, this is the most convincing dream I’ve ever had.

Possibility B, someone kidnapped me, drugged me, and has a very sick and twisted notion for torture.

Possibility C, I mixed pills with alcohol and this is all the result of a very convincing drug/alcohol hallucination.

Possibility D, I’m on a weird prank show. Though these days, I’m not sure that’s allowed anymore. Issue of consent and all. Especially not to these extremes. But perhaps some weird other Youtuber kidnapped me for one of those god-awful prank videos? In any case, I will definitely sue.

Possibility E, I’m dead and this is my after life. Whether it’s heaven or hell remains to be seen. So far, it’s looking like the latter.

Possibility F, and this is the least likely, this is all real. 

I try using the usual tricks I have when I know something’s a dream. Usually, as soon as you figure out it’s a dream, it’s pretty easy to take control of the situation. But I couldn’t. I tried looking at the two women before me and imagining them poofing away, but they won’t. The swords pointed at me didn’t become sandwiches at my internal command. And even though I internally struggled, I couldn’t force my body to wake.

So, possibility A’s usual solution is out. For B, I would have guessed acting the damsel-in-distress would work. But the damsel-in-distress act seldom works on women if you’re an adult woman yourself. Still, I had what some might call a ‘baby face’, so a little fear would be worth showing. Just not too much, otherwise it’ll be obvious that I’m trying to gather sympathy.

The only option was to play along.

“Everyone is…dead?” I repeat, making sure the confusion in my voice is evident and trying my best to sound sad. In reality, I can’t be too sad because I’m not sure the people who are ‘dead’ are even real. But the confusion is very much real. 

The woman with short hair grabs my arm, “Explain this.”

When she drops my arm, I realise just how heavy these shackles were and my wrists hurt upon dropping. 

“Argh!” I cry out as the combination of my hurting wrists and the mark suddenly glowed on my hand again. “I…can’t.”

“What do you mean ‘you can’t’?!” she screamed at me.

“I don’t know what that is, or how it got there!” I insist. Well, now that was the truth.

But next thing I know, the short-haired one immediately grabs my shoulders and it takes everything in me not to flinch. I always flinch when people touch me or get too close to me. But add in anger, that was a recipe to make my heart stop. Luckily I’ve had more than plenty of opportunities to practice controlling my expressions to these sort of things.

“You’re lying!” she exclaims, but the woman next to her, a redhead hidden under a hood, stops the other form hurting me.

“We need her, Cassandra.” she says.

So, Cassandra was the name of one of them? I’ll keep that in mind. In the meantime, I was struggling to figure out why they ‘needed’ me. Still, on the very, very, very slim chance that this was real, I had everything to gain by looking as sympathetic as possible. And if this was a prank video set by another Youtuber, you can bet your ass I’m shedding tears so they’ll look like a dick and their fans will turn against them for making poor little Skylar Claire cry.

“I…can’t believe it. All those people, dead?” I choke out, crying for nonexistant victims. I make sure that my eyes are watering. Not completely crying that I look like a blubbering mess, but enough to give that sad puppy dog look.

“What do you remember? How did you get here?” the redhead asks. That accent sounds so familiar...

See, now that is an excellent question. One that I’m not too sure of myself. In truth, I remembered a lot more than I was willing to say, even though I still don’t remember everything. But I don’t know these people. So the vaguer, the better.

“I remember…running. Things chasing me and then, a woman?” 

“A woman?” she repeats.

“She reached out to me, but then…” I say, then I realise, I actually can’t remember more than that. I don’t tell her about the glow, the ruins, the voice, or the fact that I woke up in a fucking mountain after finishing my whiskey in my studio apartment over in Pimlico.

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the Rift.” Cassandra promises to 'Leliana’, I suppose.

It seems as if I’ve said all the right things, at least. Because next thing you know, Cassandra kneels down and unchains me, then helps me stand up. 

It’s only when I stand up that I realise, for someone who downed a bottle of whiskey the other night, I feel extraordinarily okay. Better than okay, even. A lot better than I should given the circumstances. The pain in my hand was still very much present, though.

“What did happen?” I ask, curious as to what they know and what’s going on.

“It…will be easier to show you.” she says. I see the way she looks at my clothes. If she’s an actress hired by some prank show or other, then she’s very convincing, because she genuinely looks confused by my attire, like she’d never seen anything like it.

“Is your wardrobe…sufficient?” she asks, clearly looking at my short shorts and socks. 

“I…don’t think so.” I say.

“How could you have survived in this cold with-“ she began, but then she sighed. She grabbed what honestly looked like one of those giant fur snuggies that the Starks wear on _Game of Thrones_ all the time and tossed it to me. “Wear this.”

I’m tempted to ask do you have another color, since grey doesn’t exactly work with me, but I keep my mouth shut and obey her. I get the feeling this is the type of girl I need to be for the next few hours. Obedient and slightly scared. Of course, I wasn’t actually scared. Mostly because I’m still not convinced that this was real.

But then, the doors open and I see a hole in the sky.

"We call it the Breach. It's a massive rift into the world of demons and it grows larger with every passing hour. It's not the only such rift. Just the largest. All caused by the explosion at the Conclave." 

It's as if seeing the hole in the sky triggered something in me. I realised why their voices were so familiar. Their faces. Even the symbol on that woman's armor.

Conclave. Breach. Demons. A hole in the sky. Cassandra...and Leliana...

_I'm in the fucking Dragon Age Inquisition game._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of the introduction.

_Once we were in our peace, with our lives assured_

_Once we were not afraid of the dark_

_Once we sat in our kingdom with hope and pride_

_We held together the fragile sky_

_To keep our way of life_

_Once we raised up our chalice in victory_

_-‘Once We Were’ as performed by Maryden Halewell_

* * *

The year was 2014. I was home from university for the holidays, dreading every single bit of it. But I had to. My parents needed me as it was the ‘holidays’ and it was ‘time for the family’. The ‘family’ meant me, my father, my mother, my sister and the 200+ other people that they wanted to parade their ‘university-educated daughters’ in front of, whether we wanted to or not. 

It’s one am and I am restless, unable to sleep. I rarely can when I’m at home. So I just usually browse on my phone, watching make-up tutorials, piano covers of famous songs and the latest news for any game I’m particularly interested in. Of course, the truth is it is all meaningless distraction.

Then I see it: ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition Trailer’. 

For the first time since I returned home, I was feeling excitement. I remembered playing the other two games when I was younger. Both got me through some very difficult times. I modelled the Hero of Ferelden to look like a carbon copy of myself and made her the woman I couldn’t afford to be in real life: witty, sassy, clever, strong Warrior Queen I always wanted to be. I made Hawke this sarcastic little shit that never lets anything get to her, or so she tries. 

University had been rough on me. I’d made friends, but I struggled with the studies more than I cared to admit. Of course, ‘struggle’ is not what my parents want to hear when I talk about these university. They only want to hear of me planning to be president of the Debate Society next year, the modules I’ll pick, the part-time jobs that I am expected to take alongside my studies and my 200+ pages per week that I have to read and write notes for. 

The thought of being able to escape once again in the world of Thedas provided me with nothing but relief. I smiled and clicked on the trailer. But I only saw a few seconds before I could hear it outside: the sounds of my parents’ car coming into the driveway and a growing sense of dread. It was after one, they were at a Christmas party that my sister and I were allowed to leave early to (after all, we’d made our mandatory appearance where they could show us off to people, after that we were free to leave) and judging by the sound of the screeching tires, my dad must have driven quickly. Meaning he was angry.

The door opens and I could feel myself getting pre-pissed off. I count to one, two, three...

“How many times do I have to tell you, I did not sleep with Maria.” I hear my father sternly tell my mother.

And so the show begins.

“Oh, so her name is Maria, now? And I’m sure it’s a coincidence that she wears the same whorish pink lipstick I found on your shirt last week. What is it about you and skinny brunettes? Does it make you happy to know that someone that young could still want an ugly fuck like y-“

My mother didn’t finish her sentence and I didn’t need to look to know how that ended. I heard the sound of a slap, followed by the sound of something breaking and things being thrown around.

I sigh, pausing the trailer. At first, I wanted to close my door, put on earphones and resume watching. Then I remember that my sister’s back, too. She was in her first year at university whilst I was at my last. She told me that she, too, was doing ‘fine’. Of course, ‘I’m fine’ is a very complicated answer in our family. ‘I’m fine’ could mean ‘everything’s great’, ‘everything is going okay’ or ‘I am about to fall apart into tiny little pieces but I can’t tell you because we’ve never been taught to tell each other these things’. My biggest mistake was never pressing her about what ‘fine’ meant. 

Still, I quickly sneaked into her room and saw her with her pillow over her ears. She had been sleeping, and they woke her up. 

At first, we give each other the look that siblings of all troubled families give each other. The smile that resembled more like a shrug and a sigh. The smile that said, ‘here we go again’. The smile that allowed us to acknowledge that while we weren’t alone in the madness, we also couldn’t do anything to help.

“Hey. Wanna watch the new Dragon Age trailer?” I suggest, not wincing as I can hear a body thudding against the wall. 

“Sure.” she chuckles at me, rubbing her eyes, “Can’t believe they’re finally making a new one! When did we play the second one again?”

“God, three-four years ago, give or take?” I gasp, remembering when we were little high schoolers. I can still remember the circle of friends we both had. Friends we now no longer talked to. 

I jumped on her bed and eagerly held my phone up. I was only able to unpause the trailer for but a second until we heard round two of the fight.

“I am so sick of you and those fucking girls! All of you are going to kill me one day. I could have been something great, you know?! I could have been an artist, a businessman, I could have been somebody, but no, instead I’ve got you weighing me down with your problems like you always do!”

My sister looks at her door like our father was standing it its place. It’s a look I’ve seen a hundred times. A mixture of pain, guilt and anger. I watch as she closes her eyes and takes a long, deep breath. I then watch as she mouths the periodic table, recalling every single chemical element 

“Hydrogen…oxygen…nitrogen…rhenium…”

I watched as the flushed, red color disappears from her cheeks. You’d never guess she was about to cry from how utterly dry her eyes were when she opened them. And the frown she had on her face disappears.

She is an actress, my little sister. Just like her big sister. Just like her Mommy. Just like her Daddy. Her face, not unlike mine, looks way more babyish than the average university student. Free of make-up, in her pyjamas and her dyed red hair in two pigtails, I’m reminded of just how young she is, yet how she also looks so much older. I wonder, do people see the same in me?

“You know, we may not be able to play it for Christmas. Exams and all.” I say, trying to distract her, “But when we both get back after the summer, we’ll play it together.”

She then gives me what I think is a genuine smile. “Sounds like a plan.”

She sounded so excited about it all. Of course, I had no way of knowing I was going to lose her in four short months.

* * *

Seeing dead bodies in games or movies was one thing. We knew they weren’t real, even though some of those evil developers can make them seem a little too real. 

But seeing hundreds of corpses around you was another story. If you’re lucky, you’re never going to have to experience something like this. But as I followed Cassandra, I could see huddles of dead bodies together. I could smell the blood mixed in with the mountain air, tainting what is meant to be a relaxing and refreshing scent. Pure untouched snow splattered with red. The sounds of swords clashing, buildings exploding and people screaming in pain.

It’s enough to make me retch a bit. 

“You look pale.” Cassandra comments, “Are you unwell?” 

Crap. I hate that it was so obvious in my face. So, I close my eyes and take a long deep breath, holding it in. Focus on nothing but the feeling of my heart beat, pretending I could hear it instead of everything else around me. Then, I focus on something else.

Antimony…arsenic…aluminium…selenium...

And slowly, I let my breath out. I don’t need a mirror to know that the color has probably returned in my cheeks. I give out my usual pleasant, neutral smile.

“I’m fine.” I say, giving her my pleasant, neutral smile. “Let’s keep going.” 

She nods, but the fact that I can see the uncertainty in her eyes slightly annoys me. On the bright side, maybe I could play off her concern for me if need be. 

“Listen.” I begin. Whatever was going on, clearly, them thinking I’m responsible doesn’t bode well for me. I wondered if affinities were still a thing here. 

Believe it or not, I attribute a lot of my, shall we say, ‘charismatic talents’ to the first Origins game. The game made me realise that not all people are black or white and oftentimes, they may not agree with everything you do but you can still get them to like you. 

Like you enough and you may gain their undying loyalty. It’s simpler in games, though. For example, gain Zevran’s loyalty in Origins or Isabella’s loyalty in the second game, and Zevran will fight the Crows for you whereas Isabella will return what she stole to help you. In real life, loyalty is fickle. My experience says that people are more than happy to say they’ve got your back but seldom act on their promises, especially if means being selfless and helping someone else for once.

But I digress. If this was a game, their loyalty is attainable. From what I remember of Cassandra in the previous game, she was someone who was tough but fair and clearly had a strong sense of justice. If she sensed that I was willing to fix things, she’ll definitely like me.

“I understand…I’ll do what I can. Whatever it takes.” I say. As if on queue, I saw a hint of a smile.

But that was the only smile I would get for a while. As we walked through the village, scowls greeted me, grips tightened around the pommels of their swords, some even spitting on the ground.

“They have decided your guilt. They need it.” Cassandra says, and I let their hate bounce of me without a care in the world. I was used to being someone’s scapegoat. 

“The explosion ruined any chance for peace between mages and templars…the Divine brought their leaders together. Now, they are dead.”

Oof. I remember the whole mages versus templar thing being a huge deal. I can imagine how devastating such a scenario would be. A hope for a war to end, only to have it result in so many deaths. I can only imagine the suspicion and further resentment this would cause. 

Around me, I saw pain, sadness, shock, hurt. And the second they saw me, anger. 

If it’s any consolation to them, the pain of whatever was on my hand was enough to make me fall on my knees.

This wasn’t normal. This pain was too real. In my dreams, as well as many others’ dreams, whenever you were about to die or get hurt, you wake up. It’s over. Here, everything was just getting worse. 

Cassandra helps me stand back up “The pulses are coming faster now.” 

“How did I survive the blast?” I wonder out loud.

“They say you stepped out of a rift then fell unconscious. They say a woman was behind you, but no one knows who she was. Everything in the valley was laid to waste, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I suppose you’ll see enough.” 

“Temple of Sacred Ashes?” I repeated, definitely recognising the name, “Didn’t…Queen Cousland and King Alistair have some sort of history there?”

Cassandra looked slightly surprised. I don’t blame her. The fact that I felt so out of place was so clear in my outfit, my reactions and even my accent. That I actually know something must be shocking.

“As a matter of fact, yes. They travelled there during the Blight. No one knows what they found, but whatever they did, they returned in time to save Arl Eamon from death.” Cassandra said, then with a curious eye, “You…know about the Hero of Ferelden?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” I quickly say.

“Yes. I suppose they do.” she agrees.

The next thing I know, we’re crossing a bridge only for it to be struck by…whatever that hole was in the sky, then the bridge collapses and I fall in rocks.

Freakin’ rocks. I don’t know what they eat over here in Ferelden, but my body isn’t exactly invulnerable, especially not if I’m just wearing what was a glorified fur cape and my hoodie. 

I swear I cracked something. I definitely know I'll have a few bruises. Not to mention, I could feel blood trickling down from my forehead.

“Take this.” Cassandra shoves a vial with glowing red liquid inside. Is it bad that my first thought is how much likes a picture of this would get on Insta? 

Okay, that aside, I immediately gulp it down. I remember thinking once that I assumed that all health potions were cherry flavored and all mana potions were a cool blueberry flavor. It wasn’t. Tasted like the world’s worst and expired cough syrup. The taste of it makes me retch.

“Is…this your first time drinking a health potion?” Cassandra asks.

I’m not quite sure what to answer her at first and fortunately (or unfortunately), the sky spits out another green fire near us. Just as Cassandra said, it spat out demons.

Man, but were they ugly. I mean, we all see ugly creatures we have to kill in games, movies, shows, drawings. But it is nothing compared to seeing a real one. The demon I saw looked like a human whose skin was removed and whose insides were actually a leathery-greyish tone. What messes you up more is the face. I never really paid attention to the faces of demons in the games. But the more I saw it, the more I saw it had eyes, a nose, a mouth…but it was all wrong. Distorted, twisted, like someone painted a person’s face only to smear it when the paint had yet to be dry. The result was something that once looked like a human only now it…wasn’t.

“Stay behind me!” Cassandra commands as she charges with her sword and shield.

Oh, believe me, honey, I planned to. 

I immediately hid behind some of the craters. She’s not going to die. She can’t die, right? Or does she? I never got to play this game, after all. For all I know, Cassandra dies now and the main character is left to fight for themselves. In which case, I’d definitely be screwed.

But game or not, I see her, one warrior, against plenty of demons coming from all corners: some attacking up close, some attacking from afar. She’s outmatched. And suddenly, it doesn’t matter if this was real or not. I couldn’t stand by and let her fight demons all by herself. 

I can’t fight, but at least I could push and make them struggle a bit. No doubt me going up there would result in my immediate death. I do, however, see a few weapons lying around. In particular, a bow.

Now, here’s the truth: I wear glasses. Can’t see jack shit afar. But being in a business that was very focused on one’s looks, I never wore my glasses. My eyesight’s been bad for as long as I can remember. When I was young, around the time that me and my sister desperately wanted to be like Robin Hood, we signed up for archery lessons. She was much better at it than I was. Again, I refused to wear glasses so I wasn’t the best at hitting my target.

But I remember the basics. I remember the position you had to take with your arm. I also remember how to aim. And good or not, it was better than standing idly by doing nothing.

So I don’t hesitate grabbing the bow and the quiver, aiming at one of the demons who was attacking Cassandra from afar. Here’s where the real surprise is: I hit my target perfectly, a clean headshot that attached the demon to the tree.

At first, I suspect it’s beginner’s luck. But then I do it again. And again, and again. Until suddenly, all long-ranged attackers were gone.

That’s when I realise this is even weirder than I thought. When I looked at Cassandra, I could still see her face. Usually, unless someone is standing within five feet of me, their faces are a blur. But I saw hers. And as I looked around, I realised I saw everything clearly: the individual leaves on the trees. The cracks on rocks. Even the scraped ice on the floor. 

And now we’re back to my suspicion this has to be a dream. This can’t possibly be some kind of prank because how the hell could they improve my eyesight this much?

“Drop your weapon.” she orders. 

…Is she dumb? She was barely managing on her own back there and I could have easily died, too if I just stood there.

“Alright. Have it your way.” I say, with more bite than I intend to. Worst case scenario if I die, then I wake up, right? 

And if it turns out, this is all real and I die, well...I can’t say it would be the worst thing to happen.

“Wait. I cannot protect you and I cannot expect you to be defenseless.” she acquiesces, lowering her weapon. “I should remember you agreed to come willingly.”

Well, some reason at least. 

I keep my miraculous discovery to myself, but I can’t help but look around more as I followed Cassandra. Maybe I’m expecting a crack. That for one second, I see the game glitch and things go blurry for one sec then perfectly clear the next. But if there is such a flaw, I don’t notice or see it. Another theory comes to my head, that I’ve been somehow inserted into a simulation. Not that it makes sense as to why I would be chosen to be in a simulation and not, say, some pro-gamer or hard-core fan. I’m trying to find something, anything, that tells me that none of this is real. 

I see several soldiers fighting but more importantly, I saw two people that stood out the most. One hairless elven mage (and I instantly thought, definitely an apostate) and the other was...

Varric!

My heart instantly swells at the sight of this familiar guy. How could I forget? Hawke’s best friend. Arguably one of the best companions. I just met the guy, but I felt like I knew him already. I couldn’t help but feel a bit fan-girlish, which I knew was ridiculous, given the circumstances. 

Time for fangirling aside, I help them out and take out as many demons as I can. To my surprise, my near flawless aim still continues. I still miss a handful of shots, of course, but I still can’t get over how easy it was to use a bow. It felt more like an extension of my arm than an actual weapon. I don’t remember feeling this way when I was younger.

“Quickly, before more come through!” the elf says, grabbing my hand. He does it so fast that I don’t have the time to react and snatch my hand away. He directs it to the small rift and what should have been extremely painful instead seemed like I was releasing a little bit of the pain into the rift. I watched as it glowed even more until finally it closed.

“What did you do?” I was so shocked. Shocked and impressed and awed and-Does this man have a shoe as a necklace?

Oh, wait, no. That’s some kind of bone. Oh, okay. Wait, no, that’s not any less weird.

“I did nothing. The credit is yours.” he smiled at me.

“Oh…and here I was beginning to think it was just pretty.” I laughed, still half-relieved from the pain subsiding a bit. 

“Indeed. Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also put that mark on your hand. I theorised it would be able to seal the rifts and it seems I was correct.” he said.

“Meaning it could also close the Breach itself.” Cassandra concluded.

“Possibly. Meaning you hold the key for our salvation.” he says.

….Excuse me, what?

Ah. I forgot. In every Dragon Age game-or, really in any game ever and sometimes even in real life-everyone dumps everything on you. You are responsible for their happy ending just as you will be the reason for their tragedies should you fail. 

Well, at least that’s a feeling I’m very familiar with.

“No pressure, though, right?” I laugh nervously. My default reactions when I feel like my head’s about to explode.

“No, not at all! But good to know. Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.” Varric finally speaks and just hearing his voice reminds me of the good old days, when Jenny and I played as Hawke, forever wishing that one day we, too, would find a rag-tag group of misfits to call our own family. 

“Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller and occasionally, unwelcomed tagalong.” he smirked, to which Cassandra only gave out a disgusted noise.

So. It seems like this whole thing picked up where the last game left off. Cassandra and Varric obviously knew each other, despite not being each other’s biggest fans. He insists on staying and I am so very tempted to keep talking to him. But time was of the essence, and I wasn’t sure how much time could be spend talking.

“My name is Solas, if there are to be any introductions. I am pleased to see you still live.” Shoe Necklace tells me. As it turns out, he was keeping me ‘alive’. And apparently, whatever caused this big hole in the sky, it was more than ordinary magic. That’s…great.

“I realise I did not introduce myself earlier.” Cassandra says, almost bashful at her lack of courtesy. “I am Cassandra Penderghast, Seeker of the Chantry and am…was the Right Hand of the Divine.”

“I’m pleased to meet you all, although different circumstances would have been better. My name is Skylar, but I really prefer going by ’Sky'.” Not really. I’d always gone by ’Skylar’ ever since I was a little girl. But if I was going to be stuck in some weird hallucination, it only seemed fitting that I use a nickname. 

“Oh. Are you of noble Anderfel birth by any chance?” Cassandra asks.

“Er…Not really.”

“From which family do you come from, if you don’t mind me asking?” 

“…Walker.”

“In that case, it is a pleasure to meet you, Sky Walker.” Solas greets and I resist the urge to snicker. 

“Wait. So your name is ‘Sky’ and there’s a literal hole in the sky?” Varric guffaws, “That…won’t exactly help with those who think you’re responsible for this.” 

Huh. Good point. Now I wish I did choose another name. 

“You could always tell people my last name is ‘Fixer’.” I suggest. 

Varric grins, “Yeah, better we spin it that way.”

Jokes and shit-eating grins, something I was once so full of. When life loves to deal you with terrible cards, you learn to laugh at the absurd comedy that is your life. But it’s a habit I’d been forced to give up. In the real world, acting cute and stupid gets you friends who feel smarter around you, protective boys who like to feel needed and kind people who feel strong caring for the weak little thing. I wish the world didn’t work this way, but I witnessed it first-hand: back when I was my strong, independent, sassy self, no one looked out for me. I was so strong that everyone always assumed I could handle anything, so they hurt me or worse, let me get hurt. 

But then Skylar Claire showed up and she was everything I wasn’t but hated. And she worked. Pretty depressing when you think of it that way. 

But the good news is, you can’t get away with that in Thedas. Acting cute and stupid will only get you killed and hated. People here like and respect wit, bravery and ambition. Meaning, I could act less like the dumb beauty guru persona I’ve tried so hard to create and afford to crack up the occasional joke. Hallucination or not, the thought made me feel a lot more freer than I was in the actual world. 

The whole thing makes me realise that I might as well enjoy my experience here, regardless of what this experience actually was. After all, how many times have I dreamed of far-off places, daring sword fights, magic spells and princes in disguise? How many times did I put a plastic crown on my head as a kid, tied a blanket on my neck and ran around with a sword pretending to be a warrior queen? The number of times Jenny and I would go into the backyard, mix a bunch of herbs and flowers and spices into a bowl and pretend we were making potions? I might as well make the most of it while I was here.

We trek up the mountain more, defeating all manners of demons on the way. For a second, I watch Solas and become extremely jealous that I wasn’t a mage. It just looked so cool. Plus, the idea of shooting fire left and right was very pleasing to me. Although, I never was one to pick a mage class. Jenny was the mage, always. I was always the rogue. I suppose it was fitting, considering how she was the type of girl to never grow out of her ‘witch’ phase. She’d always been fascinating with anything involving magic, even becoming a wiccan in real life. Not that our parents knew. But then, there were many things about us that our parents never knew.

She would have loved being here, and being a mage.

I snap out of my thoughts when I see a demon sneaking up from behind Varric, who was too busy shooting demons to keep from Cassandra being too overwhelmed. It’s amazing how instinct happens so quickly. Before I even realised what I was doing, an arrow from my bow had been shot straight into the demon’s face.

“Nice shot!” he compliments and I can’t help but look at my arm. That demon was way too close to Varric, so if I had time to think about it, I wouldn’t have shot an arrow because I could have easily missed and hit Varric instead. But I didn’t think. And I didn’t miss. This time, at least. It all felt as natural as breathing or saying ‘look out!’. 

I don’t have time to think about the oddity of my sudden reflexes because next thing I knew, we found another small rift, with more demons. 

The closer I was to rifts, the stranger I felt. I somehow felt simultaneously weaker and stronger. I could feel myself being more vulnerable, my senses getting duller, my vision blurring a bit sometimes, almost like I was about to pass out. At the same time, I felt so…powerful. My body felt a boost in adrenaline, every attack I did seemed to have more force and thus deal more damage and the mark on my hand seemed to tremble like it was itching to release its power.

When I held my hand out to the rift and released it, it seemed to transfer some of the pain and power into it, causing it to close, much to everyone’s relief.

We begin to walk further and I recognise Leliana talking with another man in white and red robes.

Now that I know who Leliana is, a part of me is sort of…confused. I knew her as the sweet Chantry sister with a bit of a dark side when it came to her past as a bard, back when she travelled with my Cousland. There’s something so different with the way she looks now. Face void of any smiles. Eyes so serious and somber. But perhaps it’s just my imagination but I could have sworn that back in the jail cell, she looked at me with a hint of sadness in her eyes. She seemed to find it hard to look at me and I wonder why. 

“Ah, here they come…” the man said, with a frown and a tone that made me instantly tell that he was going to be a pain in the ass.

“You made it! Chancellor Rodrick, this is-“ 

“I know who she is.” he interrupts her, and if I had a purse with me, I would hit him and tell him don’t be fucking rude. “As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royaux to face execution!”

“Order me?” Cassandra looked so insulted and I can’t blame her. “You are a glorified clerk! A bureaucrat!”

“And you are a glorified thug that supposedly serves the Chantry!” he shoots back.

“And you are a moron.” I say bluntly. Did I mention how amazing it feels to tell people off again? “Surely, you’ve noticed two small rifts closed. One would conclude that perhaps me, the person with the mark that literally looks like the one in the sky, would have some sort of solution. And now you order my execution? Not a good plan.”

“A criminal and insolent, as well! A fine ally you have.” he sneers, then turns to Leliana. “I may not be able to order her execution, but the next Divine certainly can. We must find Justinia’s replacement and obey her orders on the matter.”

“Yeah, isn’t that big hole in the sky the more pressing issue?” I point out.

“You brought this on us in the first place!” he screams at me. 

“So first you reject me even though evidence shows I may be able to help you, and now you’re pointing your fat finger at me and pissing me off when you think that I’m so powerful that I was able to tear the sky apart?” I recap slowly, just in case the absurdity of it all was lost on him.

“I will not negotiate with criminals, especially one with such disrespect for authorities.” he says, looking at me like I was the lowest lifeform around here, demons included. “Call a retreat, Seeker. Our position is hopeless here.” 

“We can stop this before it’s too late.” Cassandra refuses.

“How? You won’t survive long enough to reach the Temple, even with all your soldiers.”

“We must get to the Temple, it’s the quickest route!” 

“But not the safest.” Leliana interjects, “Our forces can serve as distraction while we go through the mountain.”

“But we lost contact with an entire squadron on that path, it’s too risky.” Cassandra argues. 

“Listen to me. Abandon this now, before more lives are lost.” the Chancellor pleads and at this point, I can’t tell if he’s a coward or incredibly stupid.

“Yes, because no lives will be lost at all should we just leave the Breach alone without doing anything.” I drawl.

I can tell the Chancellor’s about to yell at me again, but then the breach suddenly growls, like thunder, and seems to grow. As it did, the mark on my hand glowered angrily, sparks flying all over the place.

The Chancellor decides to keep quiet. Suddenly, I think seeing the mark reminded everyone that in reality, while I’m their sole suspect, I’m also their only lead to stopping this thing..

“How do you think we should proceed?” Cassandra asks.

“You’re asking me?” I say, a little bit snarkier than I intended.

“You bare the mark.” Solas reasons beside me.

“And you are the one we must keep alive. Since we cannot decide on our own…” Cassandra says and it’s a relief to meet someone who isn’t a complete idiot.

“I say we charge. I won’t survive long enough for your ‘trial’. Whatever happens happens now.” I say this with the knowledge that I could wake up from whatever this is and go back to reality, but of course, it may sound like I was ready to die. Which, to be fair, was just as real in the actual world as it was here.

Cassandra nods and commands Leliana to gather the troops left to charge. I can see the Chancellor disapproving but to be honest, he would have disapproved no matter what we chose to do anyway. 

And so we trek up the stairs, but not before supplying me with actual armor, which I end up wearing over my current clothes. The armor itself is just leather with some metal that adds protection, but it was a bit itchy, overworn and given how it was simultaneously too big yet too tight, it was obvious that the armor did not belong to me.

“Do you have this in any other color?” I joke (slightly). Cassandra is not amused. “What? Green’s not my color.”

“Your eyes are green.” she points out.

Well, that’s odd. “No, they’re not? They’re brown.” 

Cassandra and Leliana shoot each other a look, both confused. Before I know it, Leliana hands me a helmet where I finally saw my reflection and I nearly drop the damn thing. I recognised myself, of course. The black hair with the wispy see-through bangs, round/heart shaped face, the wide nose I’ve always hated, the thick eyebrows I grew to love but the eyes…they were the same shape. Almond-shaped but not monolid, a testament to my Asian heritage, but they weren’t the usual brown I recognised. 

As Cassandra says, they were green. Not the pretty forest green you see in real life, but an unnatural shade. It’s only when the Breach booms again and my marks glows that I realised it was the exact same shade as the mark.

Well. That’s odd.

“Perhaps an unusual effect of the Breach?” Solas suggests. I decide later on, I may need to speak to him about things. Not just the eye color change but the sudden changes I felt in my body close to rifts, the fact that I once couldn’t see without glasses and now I can spot a bug on a very high tree or even quick instincts and reflexes that I’d never had before. 

Okay, so I have green eyes now. It still didn’t match my armor which was a pukey green but I digress. I was bound to wake up soon anyway.

Either way, we all make our way towards the Temple, only to find another small rift and a bunch of soldiers fighting demons this time. We help them out but I’m more hesitant to shoot arrows when I can easily hit one of them. But then I remember that this isn’t real, so I shoot anyway. What can I say? Morality runs loose when you’re unsure of what’s real or what isn’t. Again, to my surprise, I miss only a few and thankfully when I did miss, there was no friendly fire.

Either way, I take the opportunity of the soldiers around to try and close the rift a few times. It takes a few tries but I realised that the rift could sometimes disrupt the demons coming out of it, paralyzing them if only for a few seconds. But in combat, I soon learned that those few seconds are enough to make the difference between life or death.

Eventually, I do close the rift and realise there’s something incredibly satisfying about punching a rift close. Essentially, I am punching air yet it feels like I’m hitting the rift itself.

“Sealed. As before. You’re becoming quite proficient at this.” Solas approved.

“Let’s hope it works on the big one.” Varric comments and as I look into the sky and see ‘the big one’, I gulp and wonder if it was even possible. 

“Lady Cassandra? You managed to close the rift. Well done.” I hear an unfamiliar voice behind me.

“Do not congratulate me, Commander. This is the prisoner’s doing.” she says, gesturing towards me. 

I finally turn my head to see who she’s talking to and whoa. Um…so, if I’m really in the game, does that mean ‘romance options’ are still a thing? And if so, please tell me this guy was one of them.

“Is it? I hope they’re right about you. We’ve lost a lot of people getting you here.” he says in a slightly accusatory tone and suddenly my mood towards him shifts from wanting to bang him to wanting to bang his head. What’s with everyone being unnecessarily rude to me?

Oh. Right. The plenty of ‘people’ dead and me being the only suspect. 

“I can’t promise anything, but I will try.” I swear, and I do mean it. 

“I suppose that’s all we can ask for.” he sighs.

The Commander then informs us that the path to the Temple should be clear by now. I watch as he wishes us luck and to my surprise, I see him go out of his way to bend down and help one of his wounded soldiers walk back. I can’t deny that the display warms my heart a bit. A teeny bit, but still.

Walking to the Temple of Sacred Ashes, it’s jarring to see something I once saw so many times in my previous game destroyed. Collapsed. In ruins. 

“That is where you walked out of the Fade and our soldiers found you.” Cassandra informs me. “They say a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was.” 

Yeah, that makes two of us.

The closer I get to everything, the more pressure I feel for…everything. Seeing all the bodies scattered, the piles of rubble on fire and the big hole in the sky up close. This may not be real, but damned if it sure felt like it.

My hands get agitated and I grip onto my bow desperately so as to not let it show. 

“This is your chance to end this. Are you ready?” Cassandra asks.

I’m really not, but I lie and say I do and I try anyway.

Which basically sums up my entire life, really. 

I recognised the red lyrium from the previous game. It feels just as evil as it looks. Somehow, just being near a hunk of red rock suddenly made me feel…powerful. Very, very powerful. But in such an unnatural way. It also made me uncomfortable. It’s the kind of feeling you get when you feel too much adrenaline in your body, an almost destructive urge to run into a wall and hurt yourself, or grab the nearest thing to you and shatter it into pieces.

I hear Varric asking Cassandra why it’s there. Nobody knows. All Varric knows is that it’s evil and I have no problem believing him.

As we stood before the Breach, we could all hear echoes of the voice I heard before, even though as far as I could see, no one was around.

‘ ** _Keep the sacrifice still…_** ’

‘ _Someone, help me!_ '

“That is Divine Justinia’s voice!” Cassandra realised.

**_‘What’s going on here?!’_ **

****

I recognised my own voice, angry, shocked, but these were words I don’t ever remember saying out loud. 

“That is your voice!” Cassandra calls, “Most Holy called out to you but…”

Before she could finish, a vision appeared before us. It hit me like a rock: I had definitely seen this before. A woman in red and white held in the sky, a red energy surrounding her, an odd figure holding her up.

I saw myself, opening some kind of door and demanding to know what was happening.

**_‘We have an intruder. Kill her. Now.’_ **

****

Then, as soon as it came, the vision was gone, and I was met with the angry face of one Seeker.

“You _were_ there! Is it true? Did you see Divine Justinia? Who was the person holding her? What are we seeing?!”

“I don’t remember!” I say truthfully. 

But now’s not the time for interrogations. We were here now and whatever this thing was, it was time to act. 

As instructed, I opened the Breach with the intention of somehow closing it again. Now, Cassandra warned us demons would be coming out of there.

But I didn’t expect a twenty-foot-tall behemoth demon. 

I immediately ran far. If that sounds cowardly, just remember I am like five feet tall, have the upper body strength of a kitten, really only went to the gym like twice a week for thirty minutes and on top of that, oh, that’s right, the only fighting experience I have is my bow which I only took a few classes for when I was ten years old. 

Unsurprisingly, the ratty old bow and arrows I had didn’t do much to damage the demon. I instead focus on trying to ‘disrupt’ the Breach as much as I can. It buys everyone time as it stuns the beast for a few seconds. In that few seconds, I take advantage to aim properly and attempt to get one good shot at the very least. I decide to aim for its eye, because no matter how thick the skin all over his body seemed, the eyes are always usually everyone’s weakness.

It pays off and one of his eyes now has an arrow in it. It screams in pain and its three other eyes dart towards me.

Uh-oh. This might have been a mistake.

Before he goes back to normal, I try to take this opportunity to finally close the Breach. 

_Come on, hurry, go fast!_ I plead with the mark, my fingers shaking as I desperately try to control it to go faster. I can see out of the corner of my eye that the beast has regained control and was currently running towards me. Cassandra and several warriors try to stop him, but evidently, me costing him an eye pisses him off more than usual and he sends them flying them across the other side with one sweep one its arm.

My heart beat faster the closer he got, my hand feeling more and more chaotic, the Breach’s energy becoming increasingly unstable and just when I saw the demon’s hand in the air, about to crush me, the Breach explodes.

The last thing I see is all the green fading, before I was send flying and my head hitting the walls. 

Well. It was a good game while it lasted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys. So the first two chapters were meant to introduce the beginning of the Inquisiton but I warn you, the next few chapters will kinda be non linear. As in I won't be writing every single thing from the game. Of course I will be covering important quests like In Hushed Whispers. But I wanna focus a lot on group dynamics further on. The next chapter will touch upon the official setting of the Inquisition, but from then on, like finding the companions, that will be when the real fun begins.


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